22 July,2023 01:13 AM IST | Pune | Prakash Gosavi
Representational Image (Pic: AFP)
Four-year-old Golden Neil treated his older rivals with utter disdain when he posted a start-to-finish victory in the Gamble For Love Trophy, the feature event of the opening day of the Pune monsoon racing season 2023. The Narendra Lagad ward, who went to the gates as an on-money public choice, jumped out smartly to hit the front, setting fast pace despite wet racetrack, and on turning for home, lengthened his stride to score a runaway victory. Golden Neil was confidently ridden by Mustakim Alam, who had also won the first race on the card with Zip Along for the same trainer, thus the trainer-jockey pair recording the season's first double.
Trainer Hosidar Daji won the upper division of the Season Opener Plate with Brave Beauty (K Nazil up) at the lucrative odds of 7-to-1, but frankly admitted in a chat after the race that he was "pleasantly surprised". Trainer SK Sunderji claimed the other division of the same race with three-year-old Ameerah (Neeraj Rawal up).
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Trainer G Karthik saddled two favourites on the card, but was distinctly unlucky: The 18-to-10 favourite Kariena, in the race won by Brave Beauty, could not recover from a bad check just before the final turn; and the shortest-priced favourite of the day, The General, actually won the upper division of the D K Ashish Trophy on the racetrack, but was relegated to third position after jockey PS Chouhan, astride Democracy (3rd), lodged a protest against the winning jockey Bhavani Singh. The protest was upheld.
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In the other division of the D K Ashish Trophy, jockey CS Jodha steered trainer Adhirajsingh's Hall Of Grace to a fluent victory; and immediately in the next race, the Double Bull Plate, the same trainer sent out another winner in Time And Tide (Gagandeep Mann up), scoring a brace.
The Pesi Shroff-trained Generosity, ridden by rookie rider N Bhonsale, left her rivals standing when she ran away from them for an impressive, 4-1/4 length victory in the Alley Cat Plate.
